In various environmental campaigns in Canada, American economic and trade interests are being protected. For example, the campaign against oil tanker traffic on the north coast of British Columbia would landlock Canadian oil and continue the virtual monopoly that the U.S. has on our oil exports - all in the name of protecting the environment. No oil tanker traffic means no oil exports to Asia. The "antifarming campaign" against B.C. farmed salmon sways market share towards "wild" salmon, most of which is Alaskan.

According to my preliminary calculations, since 2000 USA foundations have poured $300 million into the environmental movement in Canada. The David Suzuki Foundation alone has been paid at least $13 million by American foundations over the past decade. Why are American foundations spending so much money in Canada instead of in their own country or in other countries around the world that are far more needy than Canada?

In some instances, environmental activism is funded by American foundations as part of marketing campaigns in favor of American interests. Media coverage of so-called scientific studies is one of the key tactics of these charity-funded marketing campaigns. The problem is, some of this science is seriously flawed, and in some cases, the findings have been falsely reported. A classic example of this is David Suzuki's false claim about high levels of PCBs in farmed salmon.

06/06/2015

Back in 2010, an outfit called Corporate Ethics International began an international campaign against Alberta oil with the catchy tag-line, "RETHINK ALBERTA."

In hindsight, it is apparent now that this was the first move in a massive campaign that would befuddle one of our country's most important industries and strain relations with our only neighbour and most important trading partner.

In August of 2010, CBC reported that the RETHINK ALBERTA campaign had put up 11 digital billboards in England and sent 7,500 postcards to travel agents across the United States.

Canadians who are affected by this campaign have a right to inquire about the funding of this San-Francisco-based campaign against one of Canada's most important industries. Not only there were the stamps on the post cards, the flashy billboards and the state-of-the-art web-site to pay for, there was also the the six digit salary for Michael Marx, the executive director of Corporate Ethics.

According to the web-site of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the production of this video was funded through Tides Canada. In a letter sent in December of 2010, the lawyer for Tides Canada wrote, "Tides Canada is not involved with, has not received funding from and has not provided any funding whatsoever to "Rethink Alberta." This statement does not ring true with me because of these two facts: 1) The Rockefeller Brothers Fund paid Tides Canada $50,000 for a project titled, "Oil Sands Tourism" and 2) The Rockefeller Brothers Fund has confirmed that the web-site produced with these funds is Rethink Alberta.

The lawyer for Tides Canada also wrote, "Tides Canada is not in any sense of the word an “affiliate” of Tides U.S."

One of the ways to find out how environmental campaigns are funded, is to ask. In 2010, I wrote to Michael Marx to inquire about who funds the Rethink Alberta campaign. Mr. Marx replied but did not answer my question. "Our policy is to maintain the confidentiality of our funders and the purpose of that funding," he wrote.

Another way to find out how environmental campaigns are funded is to look at the annual reports of the organizations that participate in these campaigns, and to then look at the funding of these organizations. Then, look at the U.S. tax returns of the donors to the organizations that participate in the campaigns.

In 2010, in the course of my research on a completely different issue (the campaign against salmon farming), I happened to notice a large number of payments for something called a "Tar Sands Campaign." One of the organizations that received funds ear-marked for the Tar Sands Campaign, was Corporate Ethics International. In fact, it was the top recipient.

In July of 2010, RETHINK ALBERTA listed ten organizations as participants in this campaign. The U.K. Tar Sands Network was later added to the list. Most of these organizations are among the groups funded by Tides for the Tar Sands Campaign, according to its tax returns. In total, Tides paid about $1.8 million to these groups in 2009. Those funds were just the beginning.

Since 2010, when the Tar Sands Campaign first came to light, the U.S. Tides Foundation has paid a total of $25 million to at least 75 groups in the U.S., Canada and in Europe. The question is, where did these funds originate?

Some of the funders of the Tar Sands Campaign are known:

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund

The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

The Marisla Foundation

The Sea Change Foundation

The Oak Foundation

The Westwind Foundation

The Schmidt Family Foundation

But their contributions do not account for all of the funds that the Tides Foundation has dispersed. Where did the rest of the money come from?

06/05/2015

April 10, 2015, The Vancouver Observer wrongly reported that Vivian Krause, who writes this blog, was part of a planned attack on environmental charities involving suspended senator Mike Duffy, now in court on criminal charges, and Ezra Levant, a former broadcaster with Sun News. This is entirely untrue.

Within days, The Vancouver Observer retracted 15 sentences from its article, including the entire headline, and substantially re-wrote the rest. Some errors were not corrected. At my suggestion, a disclosure was added to acknowledge that the publisher, Linda Solomon Wood, is the sister of Joel Solomon. Mr. Solomon is a former employee and board chair of the Tides Foundation. He is also president of several charities, including the Endswell Foundation whose questionable expenditures have been exposed by my articles in The Financial Post, The Georgia Straight and elsewhere.

While blocking me on Twitter such that I couldn't read their tweets, The Vancouver Observer and the National Observer tweeted their story widely over the weekend of April 10 - 12. At least 12 of their tweets have since been deleted but before they were deleted, those tweets were re-tweeted more than 200 times to thousands of people, including, for example, Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party who has 140,000 followers on Twitter.

After 10 pm on Sunday evening, April 12, The Vancouver Observer apologized on Twitter that 'scheduled auto-tweets went out in error.' A vague apologywas included in the article but The Vancouver Observer has refused to issue a proper correction to set the record straight.

April 10, 2015 - The Vancouver Observer wrongly reported that Vivian Krause, who writes this blog, was part of a planned attack on environmental charities involving suspended senator Mike Duffy, now in court on criminal charges, and Ezra Levant, a former broadcaster with Sun News. Within days, The Vancouver Observer retracted 15 sentences from its article, including the entire headline, and substantially re-wrote the rest. Some errors have still not been corrected but a vague apology was added. Over the weekend that it was first published, this article was widely tweeted (while I was blocked on Twitter) and then a dozen tweets were quietly deleted. For more about this, click here.

April 22, 2015 - The National Observer published a story by Mychaylo Prystupa about references to Enbridge in Mr. Duffy's agenda. The original version incorrectly reported an entry in Mr. Duffy's agenda as a "telcon" involving Mr. Duffy, representatives of Enbridge and myself. Mr. Prystupa failed to note the "s" on "telcons," giving readers the false impressions that there was one conference call involving all three parties. There was never any such call. I wrote to Mr. Prypstupa to ask him to correct this error. He did so promptly but did not add a proper correction to let readers know that an earlier version of his article had been incorrect.

April 28 - Mr. Prypstupa sent me an e-mail with 17 questions about speaking engagements that I had during the spring of 2012 and whether they had been set up by Mr. Duffy. I replied the following day. Mr. Prypstupa sent another e-mail with 6 more questions and again, I replied immediately. At 5:42 pm of the Friday of the same week, Mr. Prypstupa sent a third e-mail with 17 more questions and gave me a "deadline" of 9 am Sunday morning. He later extended his deadline to 8 pm. I sent a short reply.

May 7 - The Vancouver Observer and the National Observer co-published an article written by Sandy Garossino and Mychylo Prystupa with the headline, "Duffy Connected Charity Critic To Lucrative Industry Cash." This headline and the gist of the article is entirely untrue. Moreover, this reporting ignores the detailed information that I had emailed to Mr. Prystupa on April 29, April 30 and May 3, 2015. The Vancouver Observer tweeted its story at least 16 times, incorrectly reporting that Mr. Duffy had connected me to "oil money" and "lucrative industry cash."

May 11 - I sent a letter to Mychaylo Prystupa, Sandy Garossino & Linda Solomon, asking them to please correct the errors in their article published on May 7, 2015.

June 3 - I sent a letter that included correspondence from The Vancouver Board of Trade, the Association of Mineral Exploration of B.C., the Canadian Energy Pipelines Association and the organizers of the Inuvik Petroleum Show. All of the organizations that hosted events at which I spoke in the spring of 2012 have confirmed that Mr. Duffy played no role in me being invited to speak. The Vancouver Board of Trade wrote, "Any assertion that Mr. Duffy was involved with this event is without merit or evidence." The others said the same thing.

June 4 - I received another letter from Sandy Garossino and Linda Solomon Wood. Still no corrections. I wrote back saying that at this point, I feel that there is no good reason that the errors have still not been corrected.

11/29/2014

Below, here are excerpts of the U.S. tax returns of the Tides Foundation and Tides Canada Foundation showing more than 200 payments to environmental and First Nations groups as part of the Tar Sands Campaign. The total amount of funding represented by the payments shown below, is roughly $US-25 million (2008 - 2014).

Note: The excerpts for 2014 are from a list of grants provided by the Tides Foundation. This list does not include the stated purpose for which the funds were granted. As such, it can not be assumed that the payments made in 2014 were explicitly for the Tar Sands Campaign.

Note: These payments were for the Athabasca Watershed Water Quality Research Project. These payments were for "research to document the extent of polycyclic hydrocarbon being released from Alberta tar sands operation and in support of the Taku NGO campaign." Given the description of the purposes for which these funds were paid, it seems to me that these funds were granted as part of the Tar Sands Campaign. However, other than these payments, I have seen no evidence that Ducks Unlimited Canada is explicitly involved in the Tar Sands Campaign.

As readers of this blog will know, this blog raises fair questions about the funding of environmental activism. My goal is to raise fair questions and to do so in a fair way. Since I ask about the funding of others, it seems only fair that I answer questions about my own sources of income.

If you follow me on Twitter (I'm @FairQuestions), you will know that I am sometimes called a shill of the oil industry or it is implied that I am somehow secretly supported or funded by oil interests or conservative political interests. That is entirely untrue.

The truth is, I am not funded or directed by anyone. I write this blog entirely of my own initiative. That was the case when I first started this blog in 2010 and that is still the case four years down the road. If the research and writing that is presented here were funded by anyone, I would have no hesitation to say so.

If you do a quick search of the internet, you will find that there are two web-sites that appear to have used some of my research: Our Decision and Money Trail. Both projects invited me to participate, however since both of them have undisclosed funders, I declined.

During the first few years that I wrote this blog, I had no income whatsoever in relation to the research and writing that is presented here. That changed in 2011 when I received a couple of invitations to speak at various conferences, and I received a couple of modest honorariums. While I was writing this blog regularly during the first half of 2012, I voluntarily disclosed those honoriums. (For that, click here). I had anticipated that eventually somebody would ask "who funds you?" so I have had a post at this blog to answer this question since September of 2011.

Since June of 2012 when I thought I was done with writing this blog, I have continued to contribute occasionally to The Financial Post and have been invited to speak at several events sponsored by industry associations affiliated with the oil and gas industry, or the mining industry, including the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, the Pipeline Contractors Association of Canada, the Canadian Association of Geophysical Contractors, the Inuvik Petroleum Show and the Yukon Chamber of Mines. I have also spoken at several events sponsored by companies and investment firms that are invested in the Canadian oil and gas industry. It is because of these honorariums that I have been able to afford to continue writing over the past year.

During 2014, I also received several honorariums for articles that have been published by The Financial Post, for Alberta Oil magazine and Business in Calgary (<$5,000 in all).

No doubt about it, receiving speaking fees or honorariums or funding of any kind does put a writer in a potential dilemna. I understand that. Under my current circumstances, I feel that the best that I can offer to do is to be transparent about my situation.

07/03/2012

For years, the David Suzuki Foundation, Alexandra Morton and other environmental groups made dire claims that sea lice from salmon farms put wild salmon at risk of extinction. "Sea lice have commonly killed over 80 per cent of the annual pink salmon returns," warned the David Suzuki Foundation, adding "... local extinction is certain."

"Fish farm causes sea lice abundances thousands of times higher than natural levels, new study confirms." That was the headline of a Suzuki Foundation press release from 2005. If that's what research shows, I would agree that the farms should be closed. But research does not show what David Suzuki his foundation have been saying. Some of the claims made by David Suzuki and his foundation are plainly false. I will explain....

Why Some Sea Lice Research Claims Are False

For starters, none of the sea lice research funded by the David Suzuki Foundation actually meaured sea lice levels actually at salmon farms. None. Never. The researchers missed or ignored collecting the very data necessary to test their hypothesis that sea lice from salmon farms harm wild salmon. Its not possible to make sound conclusions about the transmission of anything from point "A" to point "B" if you don't measure point "A" (the salmon farm). Secondly, during part of the research, there wereno fish at the farm.

The lead sea lice researcher admitted himself that his findings are "all correlative." A correlation does not show causality and yet, the University of Alberta (where the research was conducted) and the David Suzuki Foundation falsely reported in the headline of their press releases, "Wild salmon mortality caused by fish farms." When concerns about that headline were conveyed to the university, the press release was quietly removed but by then, hundreds of media stories around the world had falsely reported that "salmon farms kill wild salmon," just as the University of Alberta had said itself.

If these false claims hadn't had such a big impact on public opinion, public policies and budget allocations for the protection of wild salmon, the false and misleading claims from the David Suzuki Foundation and the University of Alberta would be little more than a nuisance. But the reality is that this sea lice research is at the heart of one of the longest running and fiercest environmental controversies in the history of British Columbia. More than 500 news stories reported this research and yet the central claim that the environmentalists and scientists have been making about this research, that it shows that sea lice originating from salmon farms cause high levels of mortality among the wild, is false.

For more about the reasons why some sea lice research claims are false, click here.

Something Fishy

Like many others, including a lot of people in the salmon farming industry, I was very concerned back in 2002 when I first heard about the findings of Alexandra Morton's sea lice research. In a public inquiry, I urged the B.C. government to take Alexandra's work seriously. In fact, I even went so far as to question whether sea lice might be the marine equivalent of the pine beetle (see pg. 879) which has wreaked havoc on the B.C. forest industry. But then I started to come across information that changed my view.

In the winter of 2007, I came across a $560,000 grant (shown below) from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation for an "antifarming campaign" against farmed salmon.

The purpose of this campaign, according to what the Moore foundation reported in its tax returns was "to shift consumer and retailer demand away from farmed salmon" (see pg. 275). The campaign was to involve media and "science messages." Eventually, I learned that the sea lice researchers funded by the David Suzuki Foundation were in cahoots with this media/marketing campaign and in fact, the sea lice research itself was funded by the Moore foundation (see e-mail). This and more led me to question whether false sea lice research claims had been made knowingly and intentionally as part of the Moore foundation's "antifarming campaign" to sway market share away from farmed salmon.

Formal Complaint to The University of Alberta

In February of 2008, I submitted to the University of Alberta (UofA) a formal complaint of apparent scientific misconduct in the sea lice research conducted by Alexandra Morton, Martin Krkosek, Dr. Mark Lewis and others, under the auspices of the UofA's Centre for Mathematical Biology. As the basis for this complaint, I wrote a 267 page document. For the 2 page executive summary, click here.

At the University of Alberta, the senior scientist involved in this research is Dr. Mark Lewis. The graduate student who was the first author on most of the sea lice research papers is Dr. Martin Krkosek. One of the researchers in this group, Alexandra Morton, has campaigned actively against salmon farms for years.

This research was partially funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, through the David Suzuki Foundation, and was published (Krkosek et al. (2007) in the journal SCIENCE, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world. In 2009, the University of Alberta awarded the Gold Medal of the Governor General of Canada for this research.

My complaint and request for investigation was supported by The B.C. Council of Resource Community Mayors, the Aboriginal Aquaculture Association and a scientist with expertise in sea lice. "While this activity has created an economy within academia, it has done nothing to alleviate Third world living conditions in coastal communities. Instead it has denied First Nations and others opportunities for jobs and prosperity," wrote the executive director of the Aboriginal Aquaculture Association.

Complaint Dismissed, No Investigation

The University dismissed the complaint with no investigation of the information provided. When I appealed to the president of the University, I received a letter from the university's lawyers saying that there was no right of appeal and that all information had to be kept confidential.

By way of background, it is important that I mention that I worked in the salmon farming industry during 2002 and 2003 so I am familiar with the fish farm fuss. During 2007, I also did two short consultancies for the salmon farming industry. I was paid $17,750 for those. I have not worked for the salmon farming industry in any capacity since July of 2007, nearly five years ago.

From my experience working for UNICEF during the 1990s, I am familiar with cases of scientific misconduct because one of the worst cases in the history of Canadian science involved a prominent scientist in my field, Dr. Ranjit Chandra at Memorial University. Without a background in salmon farming and some understanding of issues related to scientific integrity, I wouldn't have noticed that something is fishy about the University of Alberta's sea lice research.

Re-written & Removed Material

Several of the key documents related to this issue have been quietly removed or re-written:

The University of Albertaremoved the key press release in which, as I had pointed out, the headline was a false claim. The University removed another key document in which the Centre for Mathematical Biology reported that it had a "research partnership" with SeaWeb, a Maryland P.R. outfit, paid by Moore to co-ordinate the "antifarming campaign." The entire part of the UofA's web-site about Dr. Martin Krkoksek sea lice is now gone. Parts of it can still be accessed through internet archives. Click here.

By the time the University of Alberta and the David Suzuki Foundation removed their press releases and web-pages that contained false and misleading claims, it was years too late. By then, the sea lice research findings had been falsely reported in hundreds of media stories around the world and much of the media and the public had turned against salmon farming - albeit, in part, on the basis of claims that are false.

06/15/2012

When I started this blog in the fall of 2009, it was a message in a bottle. A lot has happened since then and none of it would have come about without those of you who chimed in. To all of you, thank you very, very much!

There's been an inquiry in the Senate of Canada and it looks as if the Canada Revenue Agency will eventually require more transparency from federally-registered charities. Also, the feds have stopped spending millions of our tax dollars on PNCIMA, a "marine planning" initiative funded by an American foundation (with some $29 million paid to B.C. enviro groups). Unfortunately, the B.C. government seems to have picked up where the feds left off, but that's another story....

As for David Suzuki and Tides Canada, they never did answer my questions. But at least the David Suzuki Foundation has removed 23 of the 26 press releases & web-pages which I had noted to contain inaccurate or false information. Tides Canada is apparently being audited by the C.R.A.

As some of you may know, I haven't made a lot of money since I started doing the research that I've compiled at this blog. In fact, I haven't made any apart from what I've been paid recently as honorariums for talks. Its time for me to get a paying job. Hopefully, it will be something at the interface of company and cause, somewhere that I can make a living and make a difference too. (Any leads?)

There are many people that I wish to thank ...

With all my heart, I thank my family whose love, support and understanding knows no bounds. In particular, I thank my daughter, Zoé for her patience, inspiration and encouragement, especially in the first few years when I wasn't getting anywhere. "Its clever but its cheating," she once told me. As other parents will know, a daughter's words have a way of sticking. I also thank Anne Krause, my mother, a former school teacher. She painstakingly proof-read and edited all of my letters to David Suzuki.

For the privilege of testifying to your committees, I would like to thank the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources and the Finance Committees of both the House of Commons and the Senate of Canada.

Rob Scagel, a veteran of B.C. forestry, has given me feedback and input that has improved my efforts tremendously. Thanks, Rob - and congratulations on the new baby granddaughter!

A huge thanks to Mayor Gerry Furney of Port McNeill, Ralph Sultan, MLA for West Vancouver and Brian Peckford, former premier of Newfoundland. Nothing would have been accomplished without you.

I would also like to thank everyone in journalism who has taken time to hear me out. If I have learned anything through all of this, its the importance of investigative journalism, how dangerously under-funded it is, and how difficult it is for journalists these days.

At the risk of getting into trouble for leaving someone out, there are a few people in the media that I must thank because they helped me get started during 2008, 2009 and 2010: Timothy Renshaw, Nelson Bennett and Joe MacKay at Business in Vancouver, Grant Warkentin, formerly with the Campbell River Mirror, Dan MacLennan at the Courier Islander, Theresa Bird, formerly with the North Island Gazette, Tom Fletcher at Black Press, Charlie Smith at The Straight, Jon Ferry at The Province, Kevin Libin at The National Post and Margaret Wente at the Globe and Mail.

A very special thanks to everyone at CBC and Radio-Canada who have had me on their show: Brent Bambury, Rosemary Barton, Mark Kelley and the teams at As It Happens and Phare-Ouest. (I sure hope I didn't forget anybody!). Many people told me that CBC wouldn't give me a fair hearing. I never doubted that CBC would prove them wrong.

In particular, I would like to thank Terence Corcoran, the editor of The Financial Post, who published my articles when no one else would. Please join me in thanking The Financial Post/The National Post for the space that they have provided. My articles are posted there (The Girl Who Played With Tax Data). I am hoping that I will get to add a few more pieces to that series.

Last but not least by any means, thank you to everyone who has taken time to visit this blog or follow me on Twitter (@FairQuestions). Whether we agree or not, a big thanks to everyone who shared thoughts and ideas.

In closing, I would like to leave you with.... you guessed it, a series of questions. As readers of this blog will know, I have tried to look at the science and the money behind campaigns against two important Canadian industries: salmon farming in B.C. and the oil industry in Alberta. Its time to go beyond the funding and have a constructive conversation about the future of the environment movement and eco-activism in Canada. Where do we want to be 10 years from now? What are the priority environmental problems that need to be addressed? What is the role of the various conservation strategies such as parks & protected areas, market intervention, regulation & enforcement, etc. How should environmental activism be funded if not by billion-dollar, American foundations? Maybe we need a meeting about the future of the environmental movement and eco-activism in Canada. Just a thought...

I'll be in Inuvik next week where I'm invited to speak at the Inuvik Petroleum Show. I have one more post, maybe two, that I'll put up when I'm back from Inuvik. After that, who knows.... maybe I'll be back some day with 'fair questions' about a whole 'nother topic....

05/16/2012

"Ten, twenty years ago, these environmental organizations were fairly simple in their structure and they positioned themselves as such. They are still positioning themselves as such and that is not true anymore. They are complex organizations that have much more financial support from higher players and they have all kinds of really sophisticated communications support, like the corporate sector does, so they should be held to the same level of scrutiny."

– Brigitte Anderson

“I draw a distinction between political campaigns and advocacy work. I don’t have a problem with foreign foundations involving themselves in the Canadian environment but not in political campaigns.”

– Sandy Garrosino

“I have a lot of business across the border in regards to trade agreements and things like that so I’m very careful to respect their rules. I want those foreign interests to respect the rules here. We are Canada, these are Canadian issues, Canadians make these decisions and those groups should abide by the same rules that companies and other organizations are forced to abide by.”

Canadians care about the environment so it is to be expected that the environmental movement in Canada is strong. Environmental activism, however, isn’t what it used to be. The new factor is money, hundreds of millions of dollars from billion dollar American foundations. In February, for example, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, made a grant for $100 million to the Climateworks Foundation, one hundred million in a single grant to be spent over 12 months, $8.3 million per month. Hewlett’s previous grant to Climateworks, quietly made, was for $460 million.

The Hewlett Foundation is part of a consortium of billion dollar American foundations that are funding environmental activism as a way to sway investment capital and market share in various industries, particularly in the energy sector. As described in the landmark strategy paper titled, "Design to Win," voter and consumer campaigns are funded to push public policy makers to drive "massive change in investment flow" from so-called "dirty energy" to so-called "clean energy." As I see it, this is business; swaying investment capital, swaying market share, shifting consumer and retailer demand, I don’t see this as charity.

Charity is about reducing poverty. Its about advancing education and for historical reasons, its about advancing religion. That’s why charities get the tax privileges that go along with being a charity. And perhaps even more importantly, that’s why charities get the trust of the public.

Now, however, in the charitable sector we have billion dollar foundations and in once case, a hedge fund billionaire (Jim Simons, the founder of both Renaissance Technologies and the Sea Change Foundation), pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars to sway investment capital in order to foster the renewable energy industry and along with it, the energy security, the national security and the economic security of the United States.

Renewable energy is synonymous with domestic energy since all renewable energy is local. Thus, in the name of saving the planet, climate change campaigns help to foster American energy security by forcing the diversification of the domestic energy supply and weaning the U.S. off of foreign energy (read: imported oil). This is an important point that generally speaking, has been missed.

The Rockefeller Brothers' Tar Sands Campaign to choke off Canadian oil exports would benefit the U.S. in two ways: 1) deterring investment in the Alberta oilsands frees up investment capital to be invested in the renewable energy sector – or so the thinking goes. And 2) the campaign to block oil tanker traffic on the strategic north coast of B.C. would block oil exports to Asia and continue the U.S. monopoly on Canadian oil exports.

I can see how the Rockefeller Brothers' Tar Sands Campaign provides a public benefit to Americans but I do not see how the U.S.-funded campaign against the Canadian aquaculture industry and the Rockefeller Brothers' Tar Sands campaign provide a measurable benefit to Canada – which is what Canadian charities are supposed to do.